Winter is not a good season for traveling.
The weather is cold, the roads are harsh, and sometimes snow blocks the routes.
However, for the always busy lords, winter is the only season they can have a little free time, so holding the Northern Meeting at this time was inevitable.
"It's freezing. Damn."
Vlad felt the cold piercing deep into his throat and couldn't help but curse.
The group was heading to the city of the blacksmiths to participate in the Northern Conference.
The caravan, composed of Rutiger of Bayezid and Baron Heinal, seemed sturdy and robust, but even they couldn't avoid the impending cold.
Plaf- Plaf-
As everyone walked, appreciating even the warmth of their exhaled breath, there was one person who was hitting something with his fist.
The person who broke the icy silence and caught the group's attention.
It was Nibelun, a beastman who was Vlad's advisor mage.
"…Why do you keep hitting that?"
"It's a heat pouch."
Vlad tentatively opened his eyes and silently began to observe Nibelun's actions.
This was because he knew very well that Nibelun acted strangely and mysteriously every time he took something out of his backpack.
"A heat pouch?"
"Yes. It's warmth brought from the distant south. This thing is so lazy by nature that if you don't hit it, it won't activate."
"...Ah, really?"
Vlad didn't understand a word of what Nibelun was saying, but simply nodded his head.
The inexplicable was mysterious. The incomprehensible was the stuff of wizards.
"Oh, it's waking up now."
With Nibelun's words, the small bag that had been beaten began to glow with a faint red light and move.
Was it an illusion to think it seemed as if it was forcibly waking up from a warm blanket?
"Will it warm up now?"
"At least for half a day. Once you wake it up, it stays active for that long."
Vlad closed his left eye to see if there was a spirit in his pocket, but all he saw was a faint mist that was hard to discern.
This was evidence that Vlad's world still didn't fully understand the existence of the mysterious.
"Do you have another one of these?"
"No. I only have this one."
"Oh, really?"
Hardly had he finished saying he only had one, Vlad's eyes began to gleam. His hand quickly reached out.
"Eh?"
"Then lend it to me for a moment."
It was a thieving technique he couldn't resist, even though he knew it.
Nibelun looked bewildered seeing the heat pouch in Vlad's hands.
"Is this magic?"
"No. It's simply stolen."
In a sense, both cases were similar in that one only understands it when it happens to them.
Vlad, leaving behind Nibelun with wide eyes, headed to Alicia's carriage without a second thought, holding Nibelun's pouch.
"Lady Alicia. It's Vlad."
If he had something like this, he should have taken it out earlier.
Holding Nibelun's pouch, Vlad headed to Alicia's carriage without hesitation.
"Are you okay? Can you bear it?"
Vlad could see Alicia, huddled up, through the slightly open window of the carriage.
As expected, the northern cold was severe for Alicia.
Unlike here, her territory, Deirmar, was a place warm enough to produce lemons.
"I'm fine. Still, it's more bearable than the cold in my heart."
"...Then, I'm glad."
However, despite shivering from the cold, Alicia's eyes still seemed to be filled with a strange warmth.
At the end of that warmth, slowly fueled by bitter defeat, was Vlad.
"Please, accept this. It's a secret art of my mage."
The caravan leader was Rutiger, but Lady Alicia's guide was Vlad.
Alicia looked at Vlad's outstretched hand through the cold air.
"What is this?"
"They say it's a heat pouch. I'm not sure."
Although she didn't want to accept it due to her wounded pride, the warmth emanating from Vlad's hand was hard to ignore.
It was a warmth that made even her cold expression, trying to pretend to be angry, collapse.
"…If you care so much about me, wouldn't Lady Zemina be worried at home?"
"I don't know why you're mentioning Zemina now."
Vlad, worried that Alicia might reject him, relaxed upon hearing her complaint and began to smile.
"At this moment, I'm only thinking about the baroness's safety."
"...Your words are charming."
At this moment, he was Lady Alicia's knight.
Alicia, who heard those words, tried to respond with coldness, but the coldness that began to melt from the corners of her lips was something she couldn't help.
Vlad's determined approach when she needed it most was something Alicia, who had little experience with men, found hard to resist.
"If you have any inconvenience, let me know at any time."
With those words, the carriage window closed quietly.
Feeling Vlad's presence leaving again without saying anything, Alicia silently looked at the pouch Vlad had given her.
The heat pouch, as it was called, conveyed a deep warmth.
"Ugh..."
Duncan, who had been listening to the conversation right in front, let out a sigh that sounded like a groan.
'She has no immunity. No immunity to men.'
An old knight looking at his young lord with a sad expression.
A moment ago, she had such a fierce look that it seemed she would devour anyone, but now, just by receiving a pouch, she looked happy. Duncan felt like his insides were boiling with frustration.
'They all left too soon.'
Duncan sincerely wished that the former head of the family were in his place.
If he were here, he would surely have slapped that cheeky boy's face on behalf of a father.
***
A ducal family and a comital family.
And a total of 7 families, including the 5 baronial families.
These houses were the pillars of the Northern Confederation currently supporting the north.
"Maringen, Romnie, Podmils, Harquita..."
Noir's eyes were wide open as if he were surprised as he looked at the figures entertaining him.
They were like emblems coming to life.
It was Dorothea's mystery, expressed through tints and paintings.
"Don't other knights usually memorize the emblems of other houses as soon as they receive their title?"
"I learned them too."
However, his mystery was now just teaching material floating before Vlad's eyes.
"Then why don't you know them?"
"I said I learned them. Not that I know them."
He learned them, but he doesn't know them.
Dorothea was speechless at Vlad's shameless excuse.
"But other knights must know them. It would be embarrassing if you go there and you're the only one who doesn't recognize the flags of the other families."
"That's why I'm learning them now. Learn them now and use them later."
"Agh…!"
When he first saw him, Vlad was just a young squire who barely knew how to ride a horse.
But now, seeing him respond so cheekily, Dorothea could only tremble with frustration.
"Yes. As Vlad says, learning now and using later is fine. It's better than parading around like the others, pretending to be knights."
"...It's easy to say when you don't have to teach."
Rutiger, who was listening to their conversation next to them, began to laugh.
"Anyway, as long as you don't make a big mistake, it'll be fine. The northern meeting is a meeting of lords, after all."
Although he was joking, Rutiger was assessing the situation accurately.
Vlad, who was going to participate in the northern meeting by invitation from the Iron Duke, wouldn't be able to do much once there.
"You just need to greet properly. That's all you need to do."
What Vlad can achieve at the Northern Conference is probably the exchange of personal connections.
Of course, it was a very important matter, but since the Northern Conference was not a place for social gatherings in the first place, it was literally just a matter of greeting.
"We can finally see it. The city of the Iron Duke."
"Where?"
Vlad hastily dismissed Dorothea's mystery at Rutiger's words.
Although Dorothea protested the misuse of her mystery, Vlad was only focused on the scene in front of him.
"Wow..."
A high cliff towered over the snow-covered white plain.
The cliff, rising majestically enough to be called a mountain, showed its presence as it overlooked the surrounding plain.
"Can you see the fortress nestled between the cliffs over there?"
"Yes."
Vlad, who had been amazed by the grandeur of the cliff for a while, turned his gaze to follow Rutiger's direction.
Could it be because of the characteristics of the rocks forming the cliff?
The castle wall visible between the steep cliffs was of a dull grayish white color, but it shone brightly in the sunlight.
"That's the city of the Iron Duke, Bastopol. The oldest city in the north."
"...Bastopol."
A huge castle wall that seems like no one can easily breach it.
A huge city was perched on top of a cliff that rose as if defying gravity.
"Moreover, according to the founding legend, that city was the one that held out to the end against the dragon."
Baranov, the only ducal family in the North, was a family that existed even before the foundation of the Empire.
And the city they built, Bastopol, was also humanity's last defense, raising its banner to the end against the most perfect dragon.
"...It's impressive."
Vlad began to smile as he looked at the bright grayish white cliffs in the distance.
The shape of the cliff, rising alone, without anything around it, seemed to stimulate something in Vlad's world.
Thud!
I got excited because I saw it for the first time, but for some reason the city seemed to be calling me.
The city on the cliff, which he saw for the first time in his life, was definitely making Vlad's heart beat.
***
Crack...
Crack-crack...
"Hmmm."
In the city of Bastopol, in the mansion of the Iron Duke.
In the deepest basement of that place, an old man murmured quietly.
"It's reacting much more violently than before."
Fernand, the mage of the Iron Duke, observed two chests trembling as if there was an earthquake.
Two chests tightly sealed with divine chains.
One originally belonged to the Baranovs, and the other to the now extinct Ravnoma.
"...Has the dragon opened its eyes this time?"
Sealed chests (封印函) containing fragments of the most perfect dragon. [1]
The old mage's eyes flickered as he looked at the chests.
The chests had reacted when the faster dragon, Lindworm, appeared, but they had never trembled with such intensity.
To react so violently, the possibility of it being a dragon was very high.
Perhaps, to react like this, there was a great chance it was a dragon.
Crunch-
Or it must be very close.
"I need to report this."
Faced with the unsettling vibration of the sealed chests, Fernand began to silently unfold his mystery.
When handprints made with fingertips formed a line in the air, waves that seemed to have melted into the Milky Way began to sprout from there.
A huge door located in the depths of the mansion.
The dark hallway leading to that portal stretched longer and longer as the old mage's spell continued, as if stretching it out.
As if it had been stretched, the hallway became narrower and longer, and naturally began to distance itself from the world above.T/N:1: The character "(封印函)" in Korean translates to "sealing box" or "sealing chest." Here's the breakdown of the characters:
- 封 (봉): Seal- 印 (인): Seal- 函 (함): Box or chest
So, "(封印函)" refers to a box or chest used for sealing or containing something, usually something of great importance or power.
____
Join the discord!
https://dsc.gg/indra
____